Today's Event – 13th January 2022

• 1435 – Sicut Dudum, forbidding the enslavement of the Guanche natives in Canary Islands by the Spanish, is promulgated by Pope Eugene IV.

• 1547 – Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, is sentenced to death for treason, on the grounds of having quartered his arms to make them similar to those of the King, Henry VIII of England

• 1793 – Nicolas Jean Hugon de Bassville, representative of Revolutionary France, is lynched by a mob in Rome.

• 1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: A naval battle between a French ship of the line and two British frigates off the coast of Brittany ends with the French vessel running aground, resulting in over 900 deaths.

• 1822 – The design of the Greek flag is adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus.

• 1833 – United States President Andrew Jackson writes to Vice President Martin Van Buren expressing his opposition to South Carolina's defiance of federal authority in the Nullification Crisis.

• 1840 – The steamship Lexington burns and sinks four miles off the coast of Long Island with the loss of 139 lives.

• 1842 – Dr. William Brydon, an assistant surgeon in the British East India Company Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, becomes famous for being the sole survivor of an army of 4,500 men and 12,000 camp followers when he reaches the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

• 1847 – The Treaty of Cahuenga ends the Mexican–American War in California.

• 1849 – Establishment of the Colony of Vancouver Island.

• 1849 – Second Anglo-Sikh War: Battle of Chillianwala: British forces retreat from the Sikhs.

• 1888 – The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C.

• 1893 – The Independent Labour Party of the United Kingdom holds its first meeting.

• 1893 – U.S. Marines land in Honolulu, Hawaii from the USS Boston to prevent the queen from abrogating the Bayonet Constitution.

• 1895 – First Italo-Ethiopian War: The war's opening battle, the Battle of Coatit, occurs; it is an Italian victory.

• 1898 – Émile Zola's J'accuse…! exposes the Dreyfus affair.

• 1900 – To combat Czech nationalism, Emperor Franz Joseph decrees German will be language of the Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces

• 1908 – The Rhoads Opera House fire in Boyertown, Pennsylvania kills 171 people.

• 1910 – The first public radio broadcast takes place; a live performance of the operas Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci is sent out over the airwaves from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.

• 1915 – The 6.7 Mw  Avezzano earthquake shakes the Province of L'Aquila in Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme),killing between 29,978 and 32,610.

• 1920 – The Reichstag Bloodbath of January 13, 1920, the bloodiest demonstration in German history.

• 1935 – A plebiscite in Saarland shows that 90.3% of those voting wish to join Nazi Germany.

• 1939 – The Black Friday bushfires burn 20,000 square kilometers of land in Australia, claiming the lives of 71 people.

• 1942 – Henry Ford patents a soybean car, which is 30% lighter than a regular car

• 1950 – British submarine HMS Truculent collides with an oil tanker in the Thames Estuary, killing 64 men.

• 1950 – Finland forms diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China.

• 1951 – First Indochina War: The Battle of VÄ©nh Yên begins.

• 1953 – An article appears in Pravda accusing some of the most prestigious and prominent doctors, mostly Jews, in the Soviet Union of taking part in a vast plot to poison members of the top Soviet political and military leadership.

• 1958 – The Moroccan Army of Liberation ambushes a Spanish patrol in the Battle of Edchera.

• 1963 – Coup d'état in Togo results in the assassination of president Sylvanus Olympio.

• 1964 – Anti-Muslim riots break out in Calcutta, in response to anti-Hindu riots in East Pakistan. About one hundred people are killed.

• 1964 – In Manchester, New Hampshire, fourteen-year-old Pamela Mason is murdered. Edward Coolidge is tried and convicted of the crime, but the conviction is set aside by the landmark Fourth Amendment case Coolidge v. New Hampshire (1971).

• 1966 – Robert C. Weaver becomes the first African American Cabinet member when he is appointed United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

• 1968 – Johnny Cash performs live at Folsom State Prison.

• 1972 – Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia and President Edward Akufo-Addo of Ghana are ousted in a bloodless military coup by Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong.

• 1977 – Japan Air Lines Cargo Flight 1045, a Douglas DC-8 jet, crashes onto the runway during takeoff from Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, killing five

• 1978 – United States Food and Drug Administration requires all blood donations to be labeled "paid" or "volunteer" donors.

• 1982 – Shortly after takeoff, Air Florida Flight 90, a Boeing 737 jet, crashes into Washington, D.C.'s 14th Street Bridge and falls into the Potomac River, killing 78 including four motorists.

• 1985 – A passenger train plunges into a ravine in Ethiopia, killing 428 in the worst railroad disaster in Africa.

• 1986 – A month-long violent struggle begins in Aden, South Yemen between supporters of Ali Nasir Muhammad and Abdul Fattah Ismail, resulting in thousands of casualties.

• 1988 – Lee Teng-hui becomes the first native Taiwanese President of the Republic of China.

• 1990 – Douglas Wilder becomes the first elected African American governor as he takes office as Governor of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia.

• 1991 – Soviet Union troops attack Lithuanian independence supporters in Vilnius, killing 14 people and wounding around 1,000 others.

• 1993 – Space Shuttle program: Endeavour heads for space for the third time as STS-54 launches from the Kennedy Space Center.

• 1993 – The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is signed

• 2012 – The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia sinks off the coast of Italy due to the captain Francesco Schettino's negligence and irresponsibility. There are 32 aconfirmed deaths.

• 2018 – A false emergency alert warning of an impending missile strike in Hawaii causes widespread panic in the state.

• 2020 – The Thai Ministry of Public Health confirms the first case of COVID-19 outside China.

• 2021 – Outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump is impeached for a second time on a charge of incitement of insurrection following the storming of the Capitol one week prior

National Events-

• The UK government on Thursday announced the launch of free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations with India, describing it as a “golden opportunity” to put British businesses at the “front of the queue” of the Indian economy.

• A Jammu and Kashmir police personnel and a militant were killed in an ongoing operation in Kulgam, South Kashmir. At least three personnel of the army and two civilians have also sustained injuries in the operation, J&K police said.

• “For now, we will make use of the institute’s computer lab,” said Vaishnavi, one of 12.15 lakh students among whom the government plans to distribute free coupons for an array of courses offered by ed-tech companies under the National Education Alliance for Technology (NEAT) initiative.

• A doyen of the Lucknow gharana, Pt Munna Shukla passed away in his Delhi home on January 11, following a brief illness. He was 78.

• ON A day when the Supreme Court flagged the “blame game” and “war of words” between the Centre and Punjab government over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s security breach, chief ministers of BJP-ruled states came out to accuse the Congress and its government in Punjab of a “pre-planned, well-orchestrated conspiracy”

International Events-

• The latest COVID-19 wave has left millions of Americans scrambling for tests, braving long lines in the cold at pop-up sites or searching furiously online for kits to use at home. But for a select group of employees at some of the country’s largest companies, tests are free and often readily available.

• The cell phones of nearly three dozen journalists and activists in El Salvador, several of whom were investigating alleged state corruption, have been hacked since mid-2020 and implanted with sophisticated spyware typically available only to governments and law enforcement, a Canadian research institute said it has found.

• China’s “zero COVID” policy has a dedicated following: the millions of people who work diligently toward that goal, no matter the human costs. In the northwestern city of Xi’an, hospital employees refused to admit a man suffering from chest pains because he lived in a medium-risk district. He died of a heart attack.

• European Union regulators warned that frequent Covid-19 booster shots could adversely affect the immune response and may not be feasible.

• The London Interbank Offered Rate, a number that spent decades as a central force of international finance and was used in setting interest rates on everything from mortgages to student loans, has died after a long battle with regulators. It was 52.

Job alerts-

• Footwear Design and Development Institute Jobs for Academic and Managerial Cadre and other posts. Last date 14 February 2022

• Vadodara Municipal Corporation Jobs for Operator, Medical Officer and other posts. Last date 20 January 2022

• Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology Jobs for Apprentice and other posts. Last date 22 January 2022

Sports-

• There is a pot of gold not at the end of the rainbow but right there at the start, winking at the teenagers, even as they embark on the Under-19 World Cup campaign. The razzmatazz of the IPL is just around the corner with the auction in February, scheduled to be held a few days after the final.

• World number one Novak Djokovic has been “playing by his own rules” and has put his bid for a 21st Grand Slam title at risk by not following Australia’s COVID-19 vaccination requirements, world number four Stefanos Tsitsipas said on Thursday.

• Olympic bronze medallist Lovlina Borgohain was on Wednesday enlisted as a trainee deputy superintendent (DySP) in the Assam Police with Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who joined the pipping ceremony, exuding confidence that she will get inducted into the Indian Police Service (IPS) cadre in due course.

• Australia’s prime minister said Thursday his government’s tough policy toward visitors who were not vaccinated for COVID-19 had not changed, as it nears a decision on whether to deport Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic.

• Indian tennis player Yuki Bhambri suffered a straight sets defeat to Czech Republic’s Tomas Machac in the Australian Open qualifiers in Melbourne on Thursday, meaning the year’s first Grand Slam will have no Indian participation in the singles main draw.

Technology-

• Mozilla has released the latest version of its Web browser, Firefox 96, with multiple new features and fixes. The Firefox 96 version is available for desktop and Android now. In order to upgrade audio and video calls, Mozilla has worked on noise suppression and auto-gain-control in the latest update. The company has also added improvements to echo-cancellation. On Android, users will get a new history highlights feature with Firefox 96. It will show recently visited websites. Separately, Firefox users on Mac and Windows are complaining that they are facing issues while loading any website. As per user reports on Twitter and Reddit, a growing number of Firefox users are witnessing problems with sites failing to load and no status information is provided to users

• Microsoft has detailed a vulnerability that existed in macOS which could allow an attacker to bypass its inbuilt technology controls and gain access to users' protected data. Dubbed “powerdir,” the issue impacts the system called Transparency, Consent, and Control (TCC) that has been available since 2012 to help users configure privacy settings of their apps. It could let attackers hijack an existing app installed on a Mac computer or install their own app and start accessing hardware including microphone and camera to gain user data.

• Gap, the global clothing brand, is making its first foray into the world of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) through a collaboration with New York-based artist Brandon Sines and open-source blockchain platform Tezos. Sines, the brains behind the cartoon Frank Ape, helped draw up the collection based on Gap's signature hoodie. The digital collectibles come in four tiers based on pricing and availability: common, rare, epic, and one-of-a-kind. Buyers of the epic-level NFTs will also receive an exclusive physical Gap x Frank Ape hoodie while common, rare NFT buyers get a way to “unlock” the ability to purchase an epic NFT.

• After El Salvador made Bitcoin a legal tender in September last year, the crypto culture witnessed expansion in several parts of the world. However, the crypto sector could likely encounter obstacles in Pakistan. The central bank of Pakistan is reportedly considering a ban on all cryptocurrencies from operating in the country. As per Chainalysis' Global Crypto Adoption Index, Pakistan ranks third amongst the top 10 countries with the highest number of crypto users.

• The White House will meet executives from leading tech firms, including Alphabet-owned Google, Apple, and Amazon, on Thursday to discuss software security after the United States suffered several major cyberattacks last year.

Economy –

• US-based Tesla is working through a lot of challenges with the government to launch its products in India, the electric car major’s founder and CEO Elon Musk said on Thursday.

• Shares of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Thursday gained over 2 per cent after the firm reported a 12.2 per cent jump in December quarter net profit on handsome revenue growth, and guided towards maintaining the same momentum going forward.

• Shares of Wipro fell over 6 per cent during the morning deals on Thursday after the company reported Rs 2,969 crore profit for the third quarter ended December(Q3),marginally higher than Rs 2,968 crore recorded during the same quarter of last year. On a sequential basis, the net profit was up 1.3 per cent.

• After a choppy session, the 30-share index ended 85.26 points or 0.14 per cent higher at 61,235.30. Similarly, the NSE Nifty advanced 45.45 points or 0.25 per cent to 18,257.80.

• Grocery orders on e-commerce platforms, such as Tata-owned e-grocer Bigbasket, across multiple addresses in Delhi’s residential suburbs have started to show two-day delivery timelines, compared to what took under six to eight hours just a fortnight ago.

Local –

• Delhi reported three more Omicron cases on Wednesday, taking the total number of infections of the new variant to 549.

• In view of the surge in Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra and in line with the state government’s guidelines, several curbs have been imposed at hill stations near Mumbai, with the local authorities closing down some of the popular spots, including tiger reserves and national parks.

• WEST BENGAL is among those emerging as “states of concern [reporting a surge in Covid-19 cases along with Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu,” Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, said on Wednesday.

• Fifty-one-year-old B S Bharathi Anna, a visually-impaired person, who was recently elected as CPI(M)’s Chengalpet district secretary, is the first differently-abled person to be elected to a top post in the political circles of Tamil Nadu.

• Karnataka reported 21,390 fresh cases of Covid-19 and 10 deaths on Wednesday. Whereas the positivity rate in the state clocked 10.96 per cent

GK –

Bharath Subramaniyam, who was seen in the news, is associated with which sports?

[A] Tennis
[B] Chess
[C] Table-Tennis
[D] Weightlifting

UNESCO agreed to publish descriptions of India’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites on its website in which language?

[A] Tamil
[B] Hindi
[C] Sanskrit
[D] Telugu

West African Countries announced to cut their ties with which African country, over delayed elections?

[A] Mali
[B] Egypt
[C] Peru
[D] South Africa

India set a bilateral trade target of $50 billion before 2030, with which country?

[A] South Korea
[B] USA
[C] Japan
[D] UAE

‘National Innovation Week’ is organised in which month in India?

[A] January
[B] February
[C] March
[D] April